


Root, Leaf, and Stem

by brigitttt



Series: Nymph/Dryad AU [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Alternate Universe - Nymph/Dryad, Ceremonial Knives, Falling In Love, M/M, POV Laurent (Captive Prince), Plant Magic, Plants, Tenderness, excessive amounts of plants to be honest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21879457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brigitttt/pseuds/brigitttt
Summary: Laurent, a laurel nymph, is captured and presented to Damianos as a gift.
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Series: Nymph/Dryad AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576180
Comments: 58
Kudos: 216
Collections: Captive Prince Reverse Bang 2019





	Root, Leaf, and Stem

**Author's Note:**

> First and most important!! the [LOVELY ART](https://liebremaga.tumblr.com/post/189813720080/my-illustrations-for-the-captive-prince-reverse) that inspired this written work for the reverse big bang, many thanks to the incredible artist [arsmara](https://arsmara.tumblr.com/)/[liebremaga](https://liebremaga.tumblr.com/) <3
> 
> First and a half: there's ANOTHER piece of beautiful artwork done by one and the same liebremaga [HERE](https://liebremaga.tumblr.com/post/189813929530/the-faint-splash-of-water-brings-him-out-of-it) and it has Damen's butt in it so you know it's good 
> 
> Second: I'm pretty proud of this work, I hope you like it very much! I couldn't have done it without the encouragement of jay/thatgothlibrarian, to whom I also owe the idea for the smut sequel to this story. im love yuo

It’s still raining when Laurent is taken into the throne room and forced to kneel. He’s familiar with the unmined marble outcrops near his home, the stone rough and uneven and sun-warmed, but this marble is too smooth under his shins, too cool. It’s polished enough so that every part of the floor reflects the rain-soaked light shining into the hall, tempered only by the thick, red drapery hanging from the ceiling. Laurent tucks one foot over the other underneath himself, and tries not to let the sound of the rain taunt him, and thinks that he should have fought more. His knee aches from when he twisted it earlier to avoid the swing of a sword.

It appears to be all he is able to think for the entire time the man impatiently holds the end of his chain, even when a page enters from a side door, bows low to the king resting quietly on the throne, and announces that ‘ _Damianos-Exalted is approaching._ ’ Even when Laurent feels the chain being wrapped in one more loop around the man’s hand, and a large, stately figure appears from the passage behind the dais, his mind is still back on the mountain in the rain. 

This _Damianos_ has more of the same red cloth thrown around his shoulders, but his chest is bare. Raindrops cling to the curls of his hair like dew, and Laurent lowers his head again, staring at his own soft reflection in the stone between his knees. The titles men give themselves nowadays are meaningless to Laurent and his people; what good is a Highness or Exalted to a century-old tree? To a river? To the very same marble they all stand on?

“Father,” Damianos says first, facing the throne with a nod, and then, turning to Laurent’s captor, “Kastor.” His voice is strong and deep, naturally reverberating through the room. He sounds like quicksand, and Laurent must not fall in.

“Brother,” Kastor replies. “I’ve come to congratulate you on your successful defence of the southern island of Hellippi.” Here, the small chain links clink as he must hold out Laurent’s leash. “Allow me to present you with a prize.” 

Laurent wants to curl his lip at the thought of his newly appointed title of ‘gift’, but then his chin is being lifted by a firm pair of fingers, almost delicate in their movement. He tries to imbue his glare with the strength of a wind-warped cliff oak, or the paralyzing poison of a hemlock, but he knows the result must be somewhat dampened by the red around his eyes, the grief that must be visible in his laurel heart. Damianos’ eyes flick around the sight of him, eyelashes dark and long like a cow’s, and after a brief moment, he drops his hand.

“His beauty is exceptional, Kastor,” he says at last, “but I have more than enough slaves.”

“Damianos,” the man on the throne says sternly in warning.

“This is not merely a man or a slave, brother,” Kastor says, forging ahead of Damen’s refusal. He tugs sharply on the chain and Laurent’s hands clench on his knees to stop from flying to his throat. “It is a laurel nymph, found on the mountain by my men.” Laurent drops his gaze so that he doesn’t have to watch Damianos’ expression brighten with wonder.

He’s swiftly transferred to another part of the palace, led by Damianos himself; maybe in their minds they think he must be grateful to be leashed directly to the hand of a crown prince. Laurent lets his hair fall in front of his eyes as much as possible and tries to cover his limp. He thinks hopelessly of the safety of leaves and bark, and damns the rain still falling outside for luring him out in the first place. 

They reach a set of doors flanked by guards, still as stone and armed with swords, and then a rug is under Laurent’s feet once he’s stepped inside the room. It’s much softer than the marble, but less embracing than the dust of the chalky limestone ground that he’s used to, and he’s distracted enough by the peculiar sensation that he doesn’t realize the thin chain has been dropped until he looks up to spot Damianos and a slave on the far side of the room, near the open balcony. He starts slowly gathering the chain up into his own hands, assessing his options for escape, until suddenly there is a knock on the closed door behind him, and Damianos glances over.

“Enter,” he calls while striding back over to Laurent, and daring to smile at him. Laurent resists baring his own teeth, and is jostled aside as another slave appears from the door with a large tray. 

“I’ve arranged for a room, close to mine,” Damianos says, and Laurent belatedly realises he’s being spoken to, not just witnessing an announcement to the room at large. The tray is set down on a table in the area just past some decorative columns, and Laurent forgets himself a little, trailing behind Damianos towards the food, still clutching the loops of his own chain to his stomach. 

“What do nymphs eat?” Damianos asks with a sweeping gesture over the tray of goods, all manner of fruits and nuts, soft cheeses and yoghurts, honey and flatbreads. His smile falls a bit then. “Unless you only absorb sunlight? But surely you must need water,” he says, and Laurent grabs up a date and a slice of orange just to make the man stop talking. “Oh, good,” Damianos says with idle relief, and he finally retreats to a couch, propping one leg up along its length. 

There’s a silence that follows, filled with unease, in which Laurent knows that Damianos is watching him. After couple minutes of nibbling on fruit, Laurent decides that stabbing a yoghurt spoon into the crown prince’s neck would not benefit his escape, and so the best plan would be to wait for a cleaner opening, especially with his recovering knee. He places a last piece of orange peel on the tray and turns on the spot, resting back against the edge of the table. Damianos smiles at him again, revealing a singular dimple.

“A nymph,” he says, as if he still can’t believe his eyes. “A dryad. For laurel too! How noble,” and Laurent starts to reconsider the yoghurt spoon. “You commune with the trees, then. So . . .” His sentence drifts off with thought. “Will you turn into a tree? Or will you require a pre-existing tree to, well, meld with?” 

Laurent narrows his eyes into his most withering look, and adjusts his hold on the chains. How did he not think of strangling before? Damianos plows on.

“Regardless, I think it will be pleasant to have a presence such as yours in the palace. The royal gardeners will adore you,” he laughs, taking a sip of wine from a cup that must have been sitting by the couch. “The cooks too, they do appreciate bay leaf. You’ll flourish here, and should be quite an attractive sight while doing so –”

The cup clatters to the floor when Laurent flings the small chains at Damianos like a whip, ramming the point of his elbow into the bare sternum below him. Just as quickly as it happens, though, Laurent finds himself on his back on the floor, his hair flung out to the pooling wine and both wrists gripped securely in Damianos’ big hands on either side of his head. His cape billows around their legs like sailcloth.

Laurent writhes. “You have the gall,” he hisses, voice rasping, “to fantasize about my glorious future as a tortured captive in your own home, telling me how you’ll use me like a toy, a tool, a _seasoning_ as if I haven’t been stolen from my home to be presented to you like a trophy? You have all shown such little respect for a spirit of resource that I shudder to think how you treat anyone else you deem beneath you!” Laurent’s breath heaves at the end of this outpouring, and he spits out the last thing he can think of. “For the sake of the gods, you haven’t even bothered to ask for my name!”

Damianos appears to have the sense to look contrite. His grip on Laurent’s wrists doesn’t ease, but he does shift back on his knees a little, and Laurent can feel the exhale of Damianos’ breath on his own bare chest. When he finally speaks, it’s lower and softer than before. 

“I was only trying to encourage you, I didn’t realise – I didn’t realise.” Damianos lets go of Laurent’s left wrist to ineffectively brush a curl out of his eyes. “I should’ve known Kastor, of all people, would have – I didn’t know how you were taken.” Laurent tenses unwittingly as Damianos sits back fully and accidentally rests his hand on Laurent’s bad knee. He shouldn’t be allowed to look at Laurent through his eyelashes like that, when he bashfully asks, “Will you still give me the honour of knowing your name?”

Laurent gets his arms underneath himself enough to slide back a bit, his skin catching on the wine-stained rug. He rights the cup too, and comes to the decision that he’d rather be called by his name than have an undue amount of intrigue surrounding it. “Laurent,” he says at last, and wraps his arms around his aching knee, tucked up to his chest.

“Laurent,” Damianos repeats quietly. “Call me Damen.”

It’s unlikely that Laurent will have much occasion – let alone inclination – to call him anything at all. He’s led by one of the slaves to a room just off of the crown prince’s own. It’s modestly sized and fairly dim, the only natural light available entering through a narrow horizontal window high up on the wall. There’s a decent cot along one wall, with clean, white linens and pillows, a chair, table, and wash basin. It’s clearly more of an on-call servant’s room than anything. 

The guests that Damianos hosts that night seem to have reason enough to call him by his short name all they like, anyway, moaning it at the wall and practically through it, into Laurent’s ears. He longs more than ever for his family, the laurel grove they call home, nestled into the mountains and brimming with fullness and light. He wishes he were stronger, and then he wishes for the reversal of time, and then for the immediate evaporation of his own hearing, but he eventually falls asleep, late in the night under the moon and her stars.

\---

In the time that it takes for a week to pass, his knee heals and Laurent extends his self-imposed territory to include the crown prince’s palace wing, the nearest slice of the palace gardens, and the hallway that leads between the two. The thin chain attached to his collar had stayed in a messy coil in the corner of his room once he’d figured out by touch how to undo its clasp, and so he’d felt a little more able to wander outside of his room now both hands were free. He was still naked apart from the collar, and while he craved the cradling cover of bark and leaves, he settled for the length of fine, plain cloth that had been left outside his door one morning. 

To someone without Laurent’s unmatched skills of observation, it might seem as if he had been forgotten about past that first day of arrival. No one seemed to even look his way during his incremental, experimental wanderings; soldiers, servants, and slaves alike barely noticed or cared about his presence. The truth, however, was that every so often, a slave with laundry would stare at him for longer than necessary, or a clerk would dawdle with their papers in the hall. The most likely explanation was that Damianos had arranged for tabs to be kept on his whereabouts, too indifferent or too busy laying with anyone who came near to care about Laurent directly. Although slightly annoying, it’s probably better this way.

The small garden he finds at the end of the week is a lovely respite to the chilled humanity of the palace indoors. It’s clearly organized at the hand of a human; the cypress trees are carefully aligned in rows, the lambsear and beach wormwood nestled underneath trimmed purple yarrow blooms and sagebrush bushes. The entrance is through a wooden archway braided with roses in the summer, and dormant spring wisteria vines wrap along the outer walls. Dainty rockroses dot the strategically exposed bedrock in the centre, a semi-natural plinth for the star of this small section, a live kermes oak. 

Stepping out of the rose arch and onto the fine, sandy gravel of the path, Laurent takes several deep breaths of the warm air. After stretching up on his toes with his arms spread above his head, Laurent crouches down into the opposite position, folding his knees up to his collarbones. The only bit of him still outstretched is the finger he uses to lightly brush the underside of a Knautia flower, the little petals blood red like a pomegranate. 

Laurent moves like this around the small garden, in turns gently stroking and sometimes breathing life into the plants. One of the cypresses has the beginnings of canker, and he plucks off the affected branch and seizes the remains of the fungus at its heart. A couple bees buzz near him as he makes his way in a circle around, but he has to whisper his apologies to them as they land on his hair and hands; he has no nectar for them anymore.

First making sure to compliment the rockroses on their beauty before he does so, Laurent approaches the oak with careful steps. Just as he’s about to lay a reverent hand on the rough of its bark, he hears a rustle from the rose arch.

“I used to think that was the oldest tree in the world when I was a child,” Damianos says with some sort of wistful pride. Laurent hadn’t noticed the bubble of peace he’d been creating for himself in this tiny oasis until it had burst with Damianos’ arrival, and he groans internally.

Laurent circles around the oak in the opposite direction when Damianos starts walking forward. It’s slightly silly of him, and could be interpreted as coyness rather than outright evasion, but he’s been put off-kilter. He needs a strategic retreat before he has to deal with pitiable men.

“Were you talking with the plants?” Damianos asks. He bends to rub the leaf of a decorative Acanthus between his thumb and forefinger. “They’re your fellows, after all. Do they speak well of the gardeners?”

Beyond his better judgement, Laurent thinks of the cypress canker and responds, “Even if they spoke in human words, I doubt they’d have many fine ones to say about their caretakers.” 

“It’s not just these gardens they must maintain, though,” Damianos appeals. “Perhaps I can show you the royal orchards, or the box gardens?”

“ _Maintain._ ” Laurent suppresses a thorny laugh. “Neither a plant’s purpose nor desire is simply to be taken care of. True, the ones in this garden fare well for the most part, but if they knew the wild, thriving scope and freedom of the mountains as I do, they would long for it too.” He catches the bare condolence in Damianos’ expression and ducks his own face behind the oak’s trunk. He never bothers to speak this much with humans; his usual instincts have been undermined in Damianos’ presence a few times now, and Laurent caught off guard with both of their stubbornnesses. He looks out again to find Damianos snapping the stem of an Agapanthus – a small branch snaps in Laurent’s heart – and trudging over to the oak.

“Laurent,” he says simply, and offers up the flower. Laurent’s expression curdles instantly and he should really just leave, but again, he finds himself acting in opposites. He emerges fully from behind the tree and perches on a bare section of the bedrock.

“Are all humans so naive and insensitive? Or is it just you,” Laurent says, snatching the flower from Damianos’ hand. “A true barbarian, presenting me with the severed head of my friend. I suppose you’d like me to tuck it daintily behind my ear, to listen you coo about my fragile grace.” Laurent steps over to the flower bed and finds the torn stem. He hears Damianos start his sincerest apologies again and decides he’s had enough of them. “Don’t waste your breath,” he says, cupping the torn ends of the flower together and exhaling his own onto his hands. When he removes them, the Agapanthus is whole again.

“Oh,” Damianos says stupidly, quiet and wide-eyed, and Laurent could laugh at it all – his own foolish capture, his own foolish captors. On a breeze of weary irritation, Laurent marches out of the garden, and back to his dark little room.

\---

Another week, and Laurent has fully and unashamedly embraced the palace greenhouses. If he’s to be captive here forever – well, it’s not smart to think like that, despite how solidly secured the estate is, and the continuation of his subtle observers. But the greenhouses would more than do for his increasing comfort.

The greenery inside the houses are a thorough mix between exotics and foodstuffs; incredibly spiky cacti and delicate phoenix flowers are only two plots over from huge striped tomatoes, and cucumbers drooping off their vines like jewels. A patch of bright blue desert sage has been cordoned off in one corner, and a sensitive plant sits shyly next to it; Laurent had watched it fold its leaves in at his touch, for many minutes when he first came here, before even noticing the giant rectangular pond in the middle of the atrium, home to beautifully blooming water lilies. 

The morning that one of the lilies has told him it will bloom, Laurent leaves his room early, and in the dim, pre-dawn light, starts on his way over to the greenhouses. He half-expects to see dew on the marble flooring as there would be on blades of grass, and his attention to his own steps is what distracts him from the two palace soldiers he only notices at the last second.

“Ah, the little leaf,” the man says with a leer. The woman only allows her mouth to twist into a smirk, her heavy eyebrows low and intimidating. Laurent bites back a sigh and tries to sidestep out of their path, but is blocked by the sway of their forms into his. The man frowns. “Maybe it doesn’t speak.” 

“Maybe it doesn’t speak to the likes of you,” the woman taunts, and Laurent would actually agree if they weren’t clearly intent on impeding his progress towards the greenhouses.

“Come now,” the man tries again. “Let us have a bay leaf to season our breakfast with,” and they both laugh. Laurent steps to the other side but is caught by the sudden jutting out of the woman’s sword. 

“Does he bleed?” asks the woman. The sword follows against Laurent’s leg as he moves back. “Or will he simply ooze sap?”

“Maybe he’ll ooze something a little sweeter,” the man says, and Laurent’s arm is caught in the man’s grip. The woman laughs, deep and throaty like it’s the funniest thing in the world and Laurent wants to claw his way out, past the swords and hands, his heart racing. “What do you think, has the crown prince made syrup from him yet?”

Laurent is trying to determine as quickly as possible which of the two would be most unbalanced from a strike when a sudden shout echoes from down the hallway. The grip disappears from his arm and the sword is tucked back again, and Damianos finally appears in his view. Laurent holds himself still, shoulders against the wall.

“Exalted–” the woman stammers, but Damianos dismisses them both with a stormy look and a hand wave, and the cowed soldiers flee down the hall.

Laurent briefly entertains the idea of fully melting into the marble behind him instead of facing Damianos; he’s not even looking at Laurent, only clenching his jaw in the direction of the departed soldiers. Laurent stares at his dimple instead and tries to slow down his breath, feeling some sort of crackling in his ribcage, all the adrenaline from the encounter rushing back into him, making him want to dart out of here like a rabbit.

“Are you hurt?” Damianos finally speaks. Laurent would feel it if the sword had cut him but he glances down at his unmarred thigh regardless. “I’ll have their captain reprimand the entire unit, soldiers that represent this throne should never act in such ways. At least I was here to –”

“I didn’t need you to save me,” Laurent interrupts, brushing his hand over his skin as if to brush the thought away too. He needs to move, and get to the greenhouses, and yet.

“Laurent,” Damianos says, but the way he says his name is too pitying, too gentle for someone who’s supposed to _own_ him now, and something spikes abruptly within the crackling feeling inside Laurent, so much so that his shoulders jump and tighten almost painfully and he has to shut his eyes, and snap: “Stop!”

At first, Laurent only sees the look of shock on Damianos’ face, and all he can think is a snarky ‘ _good,_ ’ but then he feels the edges on his neck and shoulders where skin meets smooth, ashy grey bark. Laurent sucks in a gasp against his will. His eyes dart to Damianos – when did he get so close? – and he says, “I’m fine,” but he’s not sure who the reassurance is for. As quickly as he can, Laurent hops out of arm’s range, throwing a stiff “Don’t follow me,” over his shoulder.

The newly blooming lily is as beautiful as he expected when he finally sees it, and he ignores the way the other plants react to the bark he attempts to smooth away with his hands. Nevertheless, they sway towards him, shiver their leaves, curl open their blooms.

\---

As soon as the thin chain is reattached to his collar, Laurent is abruptly reminded of how little freedom he really has. However ashamed he is to admit, he had been starting to get used to the open pillared corridors and the walled gardens and the warm glass of the greenhouses. He had even moved his cot into an unused corner; he could now listen to the rustling of foliage at night instead of his neighbour’s enthusiastic lovers. The morning after Laurent’s first night in the greenhouse, Damianos had strolled in with affected nonchalance, smiling warmly at Laurent when he finally caught his eye. Perhaps his spies had not yet informed him of Laurent’s move.

The chain now drapes between Laurent’s own neck and his horse’s, and a strip of leather attaches his horse to Damianos’, and it all seems a bit like overkill until Laurent realises that this means they’re not just riding through the orchard, as he had done with Damianos last week, but instead will be venturing outside the palace walls. His heartbeat picks up a little at the thought, and he clutches the pommel in front of him with a nearly white-knuckled grip.

Just as they pass through the gates, Damianos nudges his horse into an easy trot, and Laurent’s horse follows at pace. Quite soon, they duck off the main road and onto a horse trail that climbs a little further up the hill, and also quickly covers them with tree shade. There’s a delicious smell of cool undergrowth and wild cypress, and Laurent has to close his eyes, allowing himself a brief moment of heady relaxation, a deep sigh of green to fill his lungs, stretch his toes out like roots. When he comes back to himself and squints his eyes open, they’ve slowed back down to a walk, laterally along the hillside.

“Do you like your new rooms?” Damianos asks from in front. Laurent watches the black curls on the back of his head, and the subtle shift of the muscles visible in his broad back under his chiton. “I should have thought of putting you in there in the first place.”

Laurent rolls his eyes now that no one can see him. “Store me next to all your other kitchen herbs,” he says, going quiet at the end as they pass through a larger patch of sunlight, slightly losing the strength of his retort.

“Perhaps the orchard would be better. You’re more akin to a lemon, I think,” Damianos says, and the utter lack of his usual apologies startles Laurent into a laugh. Damianos shoots a grin over his shoulder at him. 

They come upon an open outcrop of relatively flat white limestone, and dismount. The rock underfoot has been warmed where it sits in the sun, and it’s been smoothed by centuries of erosion. Laurent thinks of telling Damianos that he prefers this kind flooring to the marble in the palace, and then shakes his head at himself. They’re not friends.

A little stream from higher ground has essentially created its own gently guided waterfall down to a small pool, shallow enough that the water would only come up to mid-calf. It dips into small divots in the vertical outcrop on the way down, running flat against the surface instead of free-falling in a current. Damianos detaches the chain from Laurent’s collar rather than from the horse, and Laurent has to sternly remind himself that this is not something to say thanks for. He bites his lip instead and averts his eyes when Damianos hovers close to unlatch it. 

Laurent wonders if he could simply run away the instant the prince’s back is turned. It might be straightforward enough to just run up the rest of the hill and let this mountain guide him back to his own. But – he remembers his collar, then. No laurel tree would allow him in with it on, the pain for both of them would be too much to bear. It chills him to the heart, the thought of never feeling intertwined with living wood again.

The faint splash of water brings him out of it. Damianos has turned his back to him regardless, and entered the pool, naked and swinging his foot back and forth under the water with his hands on his hips. His round shoulders, nearly glowing under the sunlight, slope smoothly down into the heft of his back, and – lower. Laurent looks down at his hands for a moment, as if they could tell him what to do, or remind him of what he wants, because it’s all flown out of his head. He drops his arms by his sides and walks to the pool. On a whim, he discards the cloth around his own waist, all the better to absorb his own sunlight.

He can feel Damianos’ stare on his back when he approaches the cliff face, dipping his hands in one of the divots to splash his face. Damianos wades around behind him, then steps out of the water, and it occurs distantly that he could be just as easily preparing a knife as he could be re-dressing, or checking their horses. Laurent closes his eyes and faces the sun then; if he’s going to be lured out and taken advantage of, he might as well be warm and in the sunlight. There’s perhaps a kind of freedom in allowing himself to be so vulnerable, that he could simply not care about what happens to his body, his soul, his heart. He has faced capture and . . . somewhat mild imprisonment, and yet found a way to begin to thrive again. He’s remarkably adaptable, as are all his family, as they’re meant to be. No matter what Damianos does to him from now on, he can still survive, in one way or another, as he always has. 

Laurent doesn’t realize how long he’s been standing in the pool and contemplating a number of enduring retaliations until he feels a feather-light weight on his collarbone. His hand comes up as if to swat away a fly, but it’s really a couple of leaves – some of his own, sprouted in a slender offshoot from his hair. He plucks it gently, to hold in his hand, but then Damianos is calling to him from beyond the tree line.

“Laurent?” His voice has a nervous edge to it. “Do you know what those leaves are?”

For a small, eye-widening moment, Laurent thinks that Damianos has seen his laurel leaves, and has the sudden impulse to remove it from all human sight, toss the stem away in a flurry. But these are his own, grown in this sunlight like he never thought he’d see happen again, and the idea of ridding it so quickly aches a little. When Laurent turns around, it’s clutched behind his back. Damianos pops his head up from behind a bush like a startled deer and waves him over.

He has to stifle a laugh when he sees what Damianos has stepped in. It’s a small but significant patch of stinging nettle, and Damianos’ ankle is already starting to get a rash. At least he had the sense to put his chiton back on before traipsing through the brush. Laurent gestures for him to step out of it already, and then he has to snap a sharp “ _Stop that_ ,” when the fool reaches for his leg with his hands.

They forget the chain for his collar on the quick ride back to the palace, but Laurent is still clutching his laurel leaves, wrapped up now in the cloth he’d discarded earlier, although wishing there was at least one layer between his naked skin and the hot leather saddle. When they reach the gates, Damianos hops off his horse with ease, and takes a couple strides in the direction of the side door before suddenly turning back, offering out a hand to Laurent. It’s only after he has placed the bundled leaves into Damianos’ hands and he dismounts that Laurent realises that he’d just handed it over like it was nothing, as if it was natural to cede the evidence of his own tendernesses to him.

Minutes later, when they’ve both arrived in Damianos’ rooms, a pestle and mortar have been fetched, and a kettle set on a small brazier to boil, Laurent looks over at Damianos reclining on his low couch, running a dampened cloth over his rash. 

“Honestly,” Laurent huffs, pestling his own beautiful leaves in the mortar for the poultice with perhaps more force than necessary. “The crown prince is an idiot.”

He hears a laugh from the couch. “Didn’t I say you could call me Damen?”

\---

Laurent can smell the feast even from the greenhouses. It makes his stomach gurgle, to smell all the roasted food and perfumed herbs, despite his own filling dinner of savoury rice pudding, almonds, walnuts, and tomatoes, brought to him by one of the kitchen slaves. He wishes for a little cut of meat, perhaps, crisped to near-black but juicy with fat and salt, maybe even a small sip of wine. Of course, he could have just taken up Damen’s invitation to attend, but that would mean having to be around other people, or more specifically, subject to other people’s intruding gaze. He can go without delicacies if they are only ever paired with scrutiny.

And it is _Damen_ , now, too. Laurent can admit that if he seemed too standoffish for too long, he would never be given an opportunity for escape, not without some sort of facsimile of trust. He still doesn’t quite trust Damen fully – a lack of harmful action does not equate to goodness – but the man is also his closest chance to freedom. Laurent can feel it like roots seeking out water.

He rests in his cot and gets lost in sensing the waves of moods of the plants around him until it’s been dark outside for several hours, and he can no longer hear so much of the revelry through the glass, and then there’s a noise at the entrance to the greenhouse. The soft pink petals of the nearest Bougainvillea sigh a little in Laurent’s ear, and Damen shyly rounds the corner of the indoor palm plot. Laurent decides to sigh too.

“You’re here!” Damen exclaims in an awfully loud imitation of a whisper. Laurent swings his legs around in order to stand, and as he does so, Damen weaves unevenly across the remarkably flat and clear surface of the greenhouse floor towards him. It wouldn’t do anything to sigh twice, but it’s terribly tempting. 

Damen doesn’t appear to require a reply to his previous statement. “This place is great, I don’t know why I don’t come here more often,” he says, petting one of the palm fronds with a lax hand. Laurent doesn’t see this going anywhere useful, so he stands. Damen doesn’t seem to notice how he’s being tactfully escorted out until he gasps and grabs the two fingers Laurent’s been using to steer him into the hallway.

“I told everyone how marvelous your dryad skills are! I told them: ‘Imagine,’” and at this he stops and spins on the marble floor, holding up Laurent’s pointer finger in front of them. “‘Imagine a hand that looks like any normal hand, until – whoosh! It’s covered in bark, like the oldest oak!’ and oh, Laurent, they were so amazed!” Damen shifts so their hands are clasped together more securely and they start walking again. Laurent doesn’t have enough energy to be annoyed at Damen’s sensationalism, but reminds himself to be more careful with his displays, despite how little control he has over them. 

They reach Damen’s rooms with only a few more general exclamations of wonder, and Laurent ignores the looks that the stationed guards make at their entering together, hands joined. He remedies this immediately once they’re inside, sliding his hand out smoothly from Damen’s large grip, momentarily recalling his first day in these rooms, the same grip around his wrists on the carpet. He wonders if they’ve been able to remove the wine stain.

“My bed,” Damen says in a sigh of exultation from across the room. He reaches back towards Laurent. “Join me?”

A number of emotions jolt through Laurent in an instant, and he feels the bark brimming close under his skin again. He hadn’t realized this was where things were leading to, and – was Damen asking or commanding? Should he scoff like it’s a joke all along, or will he be expected, as the object he now is, to follow even the orders posed as questions? This is what happens when he lets his guard down, especially in company of intoxicated royalty. Laurent takes an unsteady step forward and then regrets it, and his eyes leap towards Damen’s face to gauge any useful reaction.

What he finds there is only a look of tired, drunk distraction. Damen is shedding his belt, sandals and lion pin in a haze, as if he’s already forgotten Laurent is there. Damen smiles to himself, and then turns it on him.

“You’re so beautiful, Laurent,” Damen says quietly, as if in acceptance. His dark brown hands have stilled on the fabric of his chiton, holding it to his belly as it slowly drops from his shoulder, and Laurent can’t help but stare, frozen, at the skin of his chest as it’s gradually revealed. It’s less than what he saw at the forest pool, but somehow more intimate, and Laurent needs much more distance between them than the couple meters already there. 

“Maybe . . .” Damen starts, swaying slightly in place. “You don’t know how much I’d like to –” and Damen’s mouth shuts. Laurent wants to close his eyes against what could possibly finish that sentence, but then Damen turns and sits heavily on his bed. “To see you with your leaves more often,” he says softly. 

Laurent finally pulls his eyes away from Damen only to land on the white sheets fluffed around his thighs, the patch of wine-stained carpet, the lotuses carved into the marble frieze near the ceiling. By the time he looks back, Damen is collapsed across the bed, wrapped in the deep sleep of the highly inebriated, and Laurent’s feet unstick from the floor.

Who knows what the guards think, seeing Laurent emerge alone from Damen’s rooms, but at least no alarm is raised; he’s less than a threat, apparently, maybe even something to be pitied. How many pleasure slaves must they have seen meekly retreat from these rooms each night – but not this night, though. Tonight it was Laurent that Damen had sought, that he’d mostly undressed in front of, that he’d asked to join him. In hindsight, the request may have just been for closeness, and in Laurent’s sudden exhaustion, he feels he can somewhat commiserate. 

The plants in the greenhouse feel his lowness when he slinks over to his cot, and even though it's late, he takes a minute to buck up some of the drooping orchids and repair an insect-bitten leaf or two. The desire for a touch that goes further than the surface wells up in him, and he wishes he could sink into the loam that lines the greenhouse plots, divide infinitesimally into a mist to be absorbed by every leaf inside here, anything to be embraced by nature again. Perhaps Damen can feel an inkling of the same but in a strangely human version, and Laurent idly imagines the man as a laurel to sink into, until he realises that he shouldn’t be thinking of that.

As he settles onto the cot, he feels something under his arm, and he sits up again when he feels what it is. Laurent quickly snaps off the pale green tendril sprouting out of his tricep. ‘ _Traitor_ ,’ he thinks at it with a flush.

\---

In an unbidden moment following a number of days of plucking off little green stems after each encounter with Damen, Laurent remembers how his mother had talked about his father. He had been a human, and she a laurel nymph, and she had called him fool and fighter and mortal in one breath, only to whisper the enormity of her love for him in the next. Laurent had blushed each time, childishly giddy at the thought of the existence of a being one could embrace so fully. 

Sometimes, in the very quiet hours of the early morning, Laurent accidentally dreams of Damen; he’s surrounded by rosemary and mint and the fresh, cool water of a mountain pool, and Laurent can only watch him through the tinted glass of his own leaves as the man kneels before him, or in some dreams, he merely walks into the soft lap of the water around him. Laurent wakes up from these dreams slowly, the air around him thick and humid from the greenhouse plants. Once, he’d had to comb through his hair to release all the many laurel leaves that had grown overnight; he’d swept them onto the floor and under his cot, brushing the dirt from his palms off on his own legs after.

It worries him, slightly. How changeable the wood of his heart has come to be, and through the humiliation and disgrace of his capture, too. True, it was not Damen who captured him, or even knew Laurent’s situation until he had been uncomfortably educated. Nor was it Damen who treated him poorly, or like a slave, or like an object to take for granted, or like a plaything, all actions which Laurent would have honestly expected from spoiled royalty. The brother would no doubt have been like this, Laurent supposes, if the ruthlessness with which he ordered his men to subdue Laurent is any indication of his tendencies. 

It was his mother who told Laurent to grow strong enough to bend. He thinks he’s coming to realise exactly what that means.

\---

There’s one morning when the palace seems as quiet as it ever will be, and in a bid to distract himself from his own ponderings, Laurent decides to wander.

He goes to the baths first; not the ones in Damen’s wing, but the lower ones, for in-house servants and the like. Laurent likes how well-kept they are, how much care is put into keeping the basins clean and water cool, even in the heat. He admires the natural eastern light diffusing down from the open air windows near the top of the arched ceiling, and dips his toes in the water, runs a hand against the rougher hewn stone of the walls. 

The kitchen is next, certainly not full of its usual bustle, but instead preparing trays of breakfasts, ready to be sent along to the royal family and its guests at a moments notice. Laurent had initially refused to visit after the bay leaf threats on his arrival, but naturally, as long as he stays out of their way while he’s in here, he has nothing to fear from the cooks. As he nicks a heel of bread from the royals’ scrap pile, his eyes catch on the metre tall _pithos_ jar in the corner, gathering dust between its slightly raised decorative banding. Laurent doesn’t think it’s been unsealed for decades at least, whatever it contains likely having been fermented long past edibility. It strikes him as something remarkably human, though; to have stability and tradition be morphed into something more like stasis, eternal yet immutable. No need to shift the _pithos_ once it’s been in the ground forever.

A circuitous path through the myriad of minor corridors eventually leads Laurent to the throne room, although emerging on the opposite side from the entrance through which he first arrived here. The corridor he comes out of is hidden by one of the long red curtains, and Laurent takes care to lightly grasp one of the folds before peeking around. The room is awash in servants and heavier set slaves, and Kastor is perched on the dias, overseeing the process of shifting – well, furniture, really, although Laurent doesn’t know why a throne room would need more than just a throne. A set of ornate chairs are being shifted through from the courtyard, along with a couple large tables of different styles. As Laurent had overheard yesterday, there’s another feast coming up, and this seems to be preparation for special guests. 

The troupe of slaves sets one of the heavier wooden tables down where Kastor is pointing, but then Laurent’s foot shifts dryly against the marble, enough to make noise, and he ducks behind the curtain again, not necessarily afraid of being seen, but averse to it nonetheless. Laurent has avoided interacting with Kastor whenever possible, which fortunately is the grand majority of the time; all the man seems to do is fight and feast and fuck, a heartless bore of a captor. Laurent shivers at the memory, brushing his hand quickly down his arm as if to sweep away the thought, like holding a branch out of the way of a path.

The library has recently become a place of great intrigue to Laurent. His father had taught him to read a couple words, but it had always seemed unnecessary to his life, and more than a little uncomfortable when he could still feel the plant material the scrolls were made out of. He had learned most of an older alphabet, one used only in the very dusty tomes pushed to the upper shelves, but hasn’t bothered to look further when all they seem to contain are ancient ledgers and tedious diaries. The light in here is good, though, even if all he can focus on is the wood of the shelves and the structure of the paper stacked up on them, towering like a secondary, man-made forest.

Laurent’s mother had said to him when he was but a sprout in her arms, that there had once been a great laurel forest in these parts, one which covered every inch of the mountains, presumably even the places where now there are cultivated fields and huge stone buildings. The laurel forest had since shrunk to little populations, isolated families in disparate patches, including the one his mother and her mother and her mother’s mother had made a home for. It’s not all to do with human forces, though, his mother had tried to impress upon him. Nature simply follows many paths.

It’s not until he reaches that same rug as before, all those weeks ago, that Laurent finds himself back in Damen’s rooms. The man isn’t here though, likely attending to similar business for this week’s feast, or perhaps out for a ride out to the edge of the cliffs, as he had told Laurent he was wont to do occasionally. Laurent wavers for a moment, bare feet smoothing over the silky fabric under them, wondering if this is . . . allowed, if Damen isn’t here. It shouldn’t matter, really; no one can scold him out of merely existing in a place where he is held, and if Damen isn’t here then – well, all the better.

Laurent starts a circuit of the rooms which takes him past the divans and plush cushions for private entertaining, and into the bed space, lit up brightly from the sunlight forcing its way past the gauzy white curtains covering the doorway to the balcony. Laurent finds an unlocked cabinet, filled with letters and pieces of paper and implements for writing. He also finds a small pincushion, except it’s obviously decorative, covered in bright red fabric like a hawthorn fruit, and little yellow pins in the shape of 4-pointed stars, arranged in intersecting spirals like sunflower seeds. Laurent wonders what it would be like, the kind of instance in which Damen would pause to admire such an object, and then shakes off the thought. He’s not here to think about Damen.

Except everywhere Laurent looks there are little pieces of a Damen that must only exist in utmost privacy. On one of the dressers is a little bone-handled knife, no longer than his pointer finger, dulled heavily from exposure and disuse, and sitting next to it is a cup and dish stacked together, plainly glazed terracotta on the inside, but embellished with tiny matching dotted swirls of deep blue and purple paint on the outside. In a solid oak chest at the foot of the bed– which Laurent smooths a reverent hand over first, to feel the wood’s resting spirit shimmer underneath his palm – he finds a little toy lion, carved from basalt and sanded smooth, the eyes small pieces of embedded garnet. It fits snugly in Laurent’s hand, warming under his touch already, and he places it back down in the chest with care.

A large swath of sunlight slants over the end of the bed now, brightening the pristine white sheets, which have already been tucked and levelled by slaves after Damen’s waking. In raising himself from his kneel next to the chest, Laurent lays a hand on the bedding and stills suddenly, the radiating warmth of the fine linen sinking immediately into his skin and straight to the heart. It requires embarrassingly little effort to overcome Laurent’s brief hesitation to perch on top of the bed at first, sitting directly in the ray of light, and then to close his eyes, spread his fingers and wrists over the soft fabric of the bed covers. His cheek touches the linen and he thinks of how this wrapping of sunlight around his body is so perfectly close to the feeling of being enveloped in his laurel, velvety and sweet and caressing, and his eyes don’t open again for a while.

When Laurent wakes up, he only notices his own breath at first, a sigh minutely deeper than the others, seeping warmth into the linen under the side of his face, which then makes him realise the strange lack of sun. He peers over his own shoulder towards the balcony and supposes that a cloud has finally rolled over the sky to interrupt his nap – his – in Damen’s bed – 

It comes back to him quickly, the morning’s wander, the keepsakes, the hesitation, and he sits up to face the balcony doorway, feeling leaves in his hair and young green tendrils sprouting from the tender skin at the crease of his elbow. There’s the quiet but familiar hush of sandal on marble behind him.

Laurent must look like a fantastic mixture of spooked and embarrassed when he whips around to see Damen, seated ever-so-casually on a chair by the dresser, surely pulled over from the lounge area. He has a book in his lap, knees relaxed and open enough to make Laurent blush, and a hint of a teasing smile, which only serves to help Laurent feel a couple more leaves emerge in his hair. 

“Sleep well?” Damen asks, his voice kept low, and Laurent forces his face into something less stunned as he stands up and starts hurriedly combing through his hair with his fingers.

He won’t deign to provide Damen with an answer to such a leading question, and instead simply says a stilted ‘ _pardon me_ ,’ and attempts to flee the scene. The leaves are shed on the floor, he shouldn’t bother to pick them up, it’s only Damen’s marble parquet, and he saw Damen lurch forward in his seat when Laurent rounded the bed at speed, so he shouldn’t linger. Why – why did he think the bed was a good idea? 

Damen’s sympathetic chuckle and “Please, it’s fine –” is cut off from Laurent’s ears as his blood rushes through them. He walks to the door, both shoulders and strides tightened with embarrassment, awkwardness, a clumsiness he hasn’t possessed since he was a sapling when he knocks his elbow painfully on the doorway in his haste to get out. 

Laurent heaves a sigh when he finally re-enters the greenhouse complex, wondering whether the warmth was worth it. He bites his tongue on an even bigger exhale when he thinks the answer to that might be a yes. 

\---

He finds Damen lingering just inside the greenhouse entrance one afternoon, brushing an absentminded hand down the frond of a dragon-tail plant, and Laurent tenses his shoulders so as not to shiver from the sight of it. He crosses his arms too, as if to stifle the thump his heart makes at the smile Damen makes when he catches notice of him, all soft around the edges. 

“I was hoping you’d – would you accompany, um –” Damen starts and stops; Laurent has never seen him look so flustered. He decides not to take pity just yet, and only raises an eyebrow. “Sorry,” Damen says, and takes a breath, surely fortifying. “I’m on my way to bathe after some rounds in the ring. Would you care to join?”

It’s only now Damen’s mentioned it that Laurent realizes the blush on Damen’s cheeks is not solely one of mild embarrassment, there’s redness from recent exertion too. The way his chiton is smudged with dirt and clinging in places from sweat are also things Laurent should have noticed first, and in the pause it takes him to acknowledge all of these, and then his own tardiness in responding to the invitation, Damen has abandoned his post by the plant to walk towards Laurent. And not just towards him but _with_ him, on the path to Damen’s suite. Laurent curses his feet for following blindly, but can’t quite bring himself to turn away now.

Laurent has never seen the exact royal grandeur of Damen’s private baths before, but they’re styled approximately how he might expect them, considering his familiarity with Damen’s bedroom. That’s not necessarily a statement he would have expected himself to make upon his arrival, but there’s nothing to do about it now, and in the same ill-advised method of forgetting himself as what brought him here this afternoon, Laurent strips and rinses from the warm water jug before stepping with careful feet into the heated pool.

Just as in Damen’s bedroom, Laurent notices the little intricacies in here the more he looks. The cream-coloured tiles are interspersed with tiny, delicately painted anthemions, thin strokes in the palest blue. There is also the same inclination towards natural light as in all the rooms of the palace, but the way it angles in from the windows it becomes absorbed by strips of clay in the walls, while other sunbeams dance like sprites across the surface of the water. Laurent sinks down into the pool so the water covers his nose and mouth, resulting in his hair floating across the water surface at ear-level. He hears Damen enter the bath to his right with small splashes, and feels the water move as if with the tide, pulled by the moon. 

No matter how many times Laurent tells himself that this is absurd, he keeps being pulled in, too. What was it even like before he felt like this? He would be worried about what that might mean for his future if he didn’t already feel so safe here, with the greenhouse and the gardens. He would blame Damen for seducing him, for warping his mind toward the ways of humans, if he didn’t know that Damen would not do so. He hates that he knows this, but revels in the thought nonetheless – a slightly guilty perplexity.

A dark hand appears in Laurent’s view, holding a wet cloth, the ends of which dip into the water next to Laurent’s hair. He peers up the length of the arm but stops cold at the sight beyond, of the dip of skin under Damen’s belly button, the hair leading down this softly curved plane to the water’s surface. 

Laurent is intensely grateful for the bath water covering his face, and snatches the proffered wash cloth. It’s already covered in a sweet-smelling substance, so he straightens and retreats as far as the pool’s edge will allow, running the cloth over his shoulder and chest, desperately searching for somewhere to look other than Damen’s solid arms, the heft of his torso. It’s devastatingly quiet in here; Laurent had expected a full team of attendants, ready to prepare oils and washes and little hand cloths at Damen’s whim. Instead it is just them, slowly becoming wrapped in an increasingly tension-filled bubble that could only possibly be broken by – 

“I could wash your hair for you, if you want,” says Damen. Laurent is apparently incapable of any expression other than aghast surprise after being found napping on Damen’s bed; he can feel how wide his eyes are when he turns around. 

“Um,” says Laurent, like an idiot. He clutches the wash cloth to his chest like a grandmother.

“Only if you want,” Damen repeats, but all Laurent can think about is how he brushes leaves out of his hair and stems off his arms every morning, blooming a little more while he sleeps and dreams unendingly of _Damen_ , no matter what he does. So he reaches for the smooth bark hiding just under his skin and says “Yes.”

It takes so little effort for Laurent to tip his head back, let the water lap around his shoulders, and let his eyes drift shut at the first touch of Damen’s fingers in his hair, but at the same time it takes so much more than the small breath he releases towards the ceiling to allow them both to have this moment. Laurent fervently hopes that no leaves come loose in the steady strokes that Damen’s fingers are making through his hair, like a wide-toothed comb, slick with oil from somewhere. It’s orange scented, sweet and citrus-y on top of the smooth richness of what must be a base of olive; it’s possibly more care than Laurent has ever taken for himself before.

“I was thinking,” Damen says, in a wandering tone. Laurent hums. “There’s another feast in a couple days time. You should come to this one.”

Laurent opens his eyes to slits, and stares unseeingly at the arch of wall across from them. “My skills in entertainment are likely insufficient for that sort of crowd,” he says dryly, but the relaxation of his hair wash makes it come out a little too quiet.

“No, not as a performer – I meant attending as a guest. My guest.” Damen slides his hands between strands, bisecting the wet mass of Laurent’s hair into top and bottom, and starts massaging the ends. Laurent isn’t sure what to say, but he feels like he’s gradually come to the edge of that cliff he sees in his dreams sometimes, and the scree below is already starting to tumble downwards. 

“I might –” Laurent starts to say, turning his head around to look at Damen, but there’s a sharp and painful tug on his scalp that has nothing to do with the hair in Damen’s hands but he drops it anyway, already alert for the source of the injury. Laurent winces and reaches back to find the hair near his nape has caught in the collar, the one that’s been there this whole time, he’s just awfully, embarrassingly, gotten used to it. 

Damen’s hands are back, and brush against his own, and he mutters “Let me,” as he attempts to detangle it. There’s a hush that’s only filled with the lap of water against their bodies and then Damen says, almost cautiously, “I could remove it.”

Laurent raises an eyebrow. “What, my hair? No, thank you, I’ll be fine.”

“The collar,” Damen says, and when Laurent searches his face for the joke, the catch, it proves hard to find. Nevertheless – 

“If you think you’re taking it off now and then replacing it after –” the bath, because for some reason they’re still _in a bath_ together, “then you’ll find I can put up more of a fight than I seem.” The threat comes out of his throat a bit too tightly to sound truly confident, but Laurent is nothing other than solid about this. If this is his chance, it’s almost too much to think about, the possibility of this particular relief.

“No,” Damen says. “It should come off for good.” He lifts his hand out of the water to reach toward Laurent and then aborts the movement, as if he’s unsure whether it would be welcome. “I trust you, Laurent.”

It turns out to be a special mechanism of a latch that Laurent could never see all this time, one that clicks open as simple as breathing, and suddenly the weight is being lifted and pulled aside. Damen lets out a breath of a hum but Laurent barely notices, bringing his hands up from where they had been hovering underneath the lap of the bath water to wind them around his own bared neck, relishing the relief. This is what it was like before, isn’t it, with the air beautiful and cool against his skin there. Laurent feels like he can fill the bark of the largest standing oak now, reach his fingertips into the point of each and every branch from the inside out. Laurent feels like he’s glowing green with new energy, all because of this human man. 

“You shouldn’t,” Laurent whispers, and hopes that Damen doesn’t ever go back on his word.

\---

The feast is as large and sumptuous as the last one had sounded and smelled from Laurent’s hideaway in the greenhouses. The main hall itself appears no different from how it usually is, with its draped red curtains, central dais, and lit brazier, but it’s now overwhelmed with guests, milling and talking and lounging and eating; a true feast for all the senses. Laurent is more glad than ever to have arrived separately from Damen, for the crowd around the crown prince is currently swarming. It reminds him of enthusiastic bees dancing around a hive.

Slinking along the edge of the hall that opens onto a courtyard with columns provides the best route for accessing the jug of water left on a low side table, and it’s no matter for Laurent to grab a cup and fill it. He surveys the room again as he takes slow sips, and when his eyes land on that part of the room again, Damen is extracting himself from his swirling cloud of admirers and smiling at Laurent.

“Hello there,” says a voice much too close, and Laurent spills some of his water on his hand with a jolt. He turns to find Kastor staring down at him, not unlike a bird of prey circling the sky before a stoop. He has a heavy, decorative pin attached to his himation at his shoulder, carved out of a dark stone which contrasts with the ivory of the fabric. The prince lifts his bearded jaw as if to evaluate Laurent from a distance, and says “Enjoying ourselves in this grandeur?”

Laurent would very much like to ignore the question, but before he can actively evade answering, Damen finally breaches the last throng of guests, and steps into the conversation.

“Laurent, you came,” he says, a little breathless. He messily adjusts the drape of his own robes where they’re slipping out of the crook of his arm, his lion’s head pin gleaming in the firelight, and puts his cup of wine down on the table. “And Kastor – haven’t seen much of you around.”

Kastor smiles at this, but as he speaks with Damen, Laurent can’t help but feel an unease develop in his chest at the calculating pierce of Kastor’s eyes, the practiced tilt of his head as he laughs at something Damen says. On the other hand, Laurent thinks, holding his cup to his lips but not drinking anymore, this feeling could be little more than the remnants of acrimony from his capture at Kastor’s hands, dulled while out of the man’s sight but reignited at the return of his scrutiny. 

“You’re treating your gift well?” Kastor says with a nod to Laurent, and Laurent is somewhat pleased to see the tiny clench in Damen’s jaw at the words. 

“I treat Laurent with all that he deserves,” Damen says carefully. Laurent sees Damen’s eyes dart to his now bare neck before looking away again. 

“I’m glad to see him so welcomed into your _house_ ,” Kastor says, emphasising the last word with a smirk. Laurent wants to lash out at the insinuation with newfound strength, wants to push Kastor away so forcefully that he breaks through the marble of the floor and enters the underworld. Thankfully, Kastor excuses himself before Laurent can cause a scene, and Damen ducks his head to interrupt the angry sightline Laurent has created while glaring at the floor. 

“Food?” he says, and Laurent doesn’t need to be further coaxed. He’s led over to one of the centre tables and handed small palmfuls of roasted meats, dates and soft cheeses, a seared apricot covered in spiced honey, flatbread with seasoned lamb and sliced cucumber. He doesn’t drink more than water and a small sip of Damen’s proffered wine, and he immediately dispels the thought of touching his lips to the spot where Damen’s own had been. 

The night extends in a surprisingly quiet way, inside of some sort of insulated bubble created by Damen and his little offerings of food, and then out past the columns and into the cloudless night, lit only by the waxing moon and one of the glowing braziers. Damen leads them to an inconspicuous wooden gate set into a wall of tall bushes, and when he lets his hand linger on the wood of the door Laurent swears he can feel it as if it were against his own skin. His unfurling blush as the gate gently closes behind him distracts him momentarily from the grass underneath his feet, but then he notices how the tufts are longer, more uneven here than in the carefully curated gardens open to the rest of the palace, and then even in the dark he can see the hundreds of wildflowers springing up in patches around them. Akielon buttercups cut through the grass in places, little white petals whispering happiness to Laurent in the slight breeze. Purple-blue bellflowers stick their blossoms up from the cracks in the walls in welcome. When Laurent sees the dainty peony blossoms peeking out of their own greenery he is propelled forward, and in a way he has not experienced since arriving here, the grass parts around his footsteps and Laurent is – struck silent. 

There is something happening in his chest that’s hard to describe in words that humans use; it’s the lightness of thin leaves on the air, the fullness of roots rich with water, the stability of a tall, green stem. 

“It was my mother’s garden,” Damen says behind him, tracing a hand over the grass tips. “Egeria.”

Laurent turns, mouth agape. “Egeria – of the sacred groves? The wise black poplar?” Damen only looks confused but Laurent is now filled with a certainty, bolstered by the air thick around them with the scent of wild blooms, and he walks to Damen, grips him by the elbow to say, “Nymph of the Spring?”

Damen’s expression becomes gradually more stunned, his lips opening and eyes widening. Laurent wants to grin like the sun, brighten the whole garden into astonishing daytime, because, “Your mother was a goddess, Damianos.”

Damen lets out a shaky laugh, but doesn’t step out of Laurent’s hold; rather, he grips Laurent back, searching his face in the moonlight. Laurent can feel the truth of it now that he’s said it out loud, that Damen’s mother is that very nymph of the mountains, famous for the water at her natural spring and worshipped by humans for at least a century. Of course Damen would be her child, despite his all too prominent humanity, he has a little of his mother in him, in this adaptability, this gentleness. The wisdom too, perhaps, when given a proper opportunity to show itself. 

Laurent feels a surge of that same feeling of lightness and fullness pull him forward into Damen’s chest, bring his hand up to touch the cloth of Damen’s chiton where it’s showing under his slipping himation, right over the beating of his heart, the pulse steady but fast. He tilts his head up and Damen is just there, pressing a kiss underneath his right eye, and then his left, high up on each cheekbone, underneath the moon and the stars and among the flowers of his mother’s woodland. Laurent twines a hand into the small hairs at the back of Damen’s neck and guides him down, closing his eyes to this world and opening them in another – the one he sees in his dreams, maybe, where everything is tinted with the lushest green and the reddest heartwood, smooth fibres coursing through his limbs as he kisses Damen, takes the exhale Damen breathes into him. Laurent feels with utmost clarity the earth below him and the hands around him, the cycle of bud-bloom-wither as if the world is revolving at double pace. 

An unsteady breath is shared between them when their lips part, and Laurent angles forward again for another wet kiss before leaning back. He sees Damen lick his top lip and then flutter his eyelids open, but registers the ensuing smile as something different than before. Laurent’s gaze flicks over to his own wrist where it’s resting against Damen’s neck, and sees the freckling of tiny white flowers, and jumps back in a rush.

“ _What_ –” is all he can say before Damen’s hands land around his waist again, soothing up towards his ribcage and coming up against – tender, green new-growth stems, soft leaves, and most of all, beautiful little blossoms he hasn’t seen since closer to childhood. He looks up at Damen again and finds the same smile, filled to the brim with wonderment.

“They’re – it’s – you’re beautiful, Laurent,” he says, and Laurent wants to laugh and twirl them around so he does, falling down to the grass and flowers that bend toward them, curling into his blooming body, wrapping gently across the hand he has joined with Damen’s on the ground between them.

\---

Laurent falls asleep in the greenhouse sometime in the very early hours of the morning, still dotted with blossoms, the fronds of every plant around him sighing towards his cot – and wakes up to the harsh grip of an arm around his chest, a hand roughly clenched over his mouth.

The noise he would have made gets stuck under the hand, and he’s hoisted out of bed with only a glimpse of the beard, the steeled eyes of his attacker, before he tries to kick out at him, make even more of a fight than he did back then. He reaches back with a hand to claw at Kastor’s face, tries to lift his legs and push his weight into imbalance, but every jab of his elbows, every attempt to fashion his fingers into talons, to kick at soft joints is met with hardness and evasion, and soon enough he’s being heaved into one of the potting tables – stone that warms in the afternoon sunlight through the glass roof – and there’s a blunt pain on his forehead – close to the spot Damen had kissed last night in the grass – and then dark.

One of his eyes feels heavy with swollen skin, and it’s difficult to blink them open at first. The light is still low, it must not quite be sunrise yet, which means he must not have been unconscious for long. When Laurent tries to move his arms, there’s friction and pressure from tight ropes, wound around his limbs and body and securing him to what appears to be the large wood table positioned in the throne room at Kastor’s order. Laurent turns his head to the side as much as his growing headache will allow him and breathes out a thin exhale through his teeth, trying to determine where Kastor might be. With his fingers he blearily searches for any knots in his bindings, but all he feels are the strong strands of rope, and – smooth, solid oak table, he can sense it –

A sudden sharp scrape of metal along a file jolts Laurent’s attention towards Kastor, as he approaches the oak table from the side. He holds a _kopis_ in his hand, the curved blade elegant and deadly like a nightshade, and Laurent strains against the ropes again at the image of that dagger taking slices as it pleases. 

All Kastor says when he reaches the table and lays a hand on the surface is, “Finally.” Laurent grits his teeth against the swimming pain emanating from the wound above his eye and tries to squirm into some sort of escape but he is held well and truly fast. Kastor twists his mouth into a pinched smile. “It’ll only hurt more if you do that, nymph. Staying still will make everything easier – but perhaps not quicker. It’s delicate work to carve out _heartwood_ , or so I’ve heard.”

Laurent feels the bark bristle under his skin again in horror. Of course, it all makes sense now; the myths among humans are always so cruel and terrible. “You had me tamed, like – like in a story,” Laurent says. The very tip of the dagger’s blade comes down close to his knee and he flinches away as much as he can. 

“‘ _Soften the heartwood, harvest and prosper,_ ’” Kastor quotes, and Laurent’s eyes dart around for anything to help but all it does is make him dizzier. “I knew you would never succumb to me, but my benign brother, oh!” he laughs. “Only a simple yet insatiable man like him could succeed in bedding the prickly thorn.”

Laurent desperately wants to squeeze his eyes shut but that would mean surrendering his sight on the dagger, now trailing along the tabletop terrifyingly close to his side. It’s only when he attempts a shaky breath that he notices, as if muffled through thick cotton layers, the tiny spark of life still inside the solid oak beneath him. 

“You’re already prince,” Laurent says, forcing the words out as calmly as he can. “Why go to all the trouble of _me_ , when you could just do away with Damen and be next in line?”

“You can’t be that much of a fool. What good is just being crown prince, when I could gain the power of a nymph’s sacrificed heartwood, too? I would be the best of the four lands at least,” Kastor says, pride pushing out his chest and making him take up a firmer grip on the _kopis_. He traces the point along the outline of Laurent’s ribs, and Laurent clenches his fists where they sit immobilised.

“How do you really know how it works?” Without letting anything but fear-tinged neutrality show on his face, Laurent tries to reach down into the table, not with his hands but with his laurel spirit. He finds the spark of the oak and carefully shares his own green and leaves and life around it, coaxing and feeding. He thinks of the feeling of rustling leaves and tangling roots, and with the softest of urgings, the solid oak catches on.

“It has to be how it works,” Kastor says forcefully. When Laurent looks up from the dagger standing on his chest he sees out of the corner of his eye, of all people, Damen. He’s coming forward from behind one of the long, red curtains at the end of the room, with slow, silent steps, his sword at the ready. Trust a son of Egeria to somehow sense the power Laurent’s trying to weild. Laurent flicks his gaze back up to Kastor’s narrowed eyes before he can accidentally draw attention to Damen.

“I don’t think you’ve really done your research, Kastor,” Laurent spits. He feels the gradual swell of wood and bark and long buried root and tugs it upwards from the table, wrapping it around his own heart, his heart that burns so brightly for the mountains and the laurels, and a single human, molten and churning and thriving. “You’ve missed the most important fact.”

“Oh?” Kastor grins now, with wild eyes, and lifts the dagger overhead to ask “What’s that?” It’s dramatic, and Laurent tenses, not quite fully sure if this all will work, not sure that Damen could make it over in time. 

“What do plants do _best_?” Laurent says, breath shortening, and he flings every bit of the power stirring inside him down into the table, a surge of pain and anger and frustration, of tenacity and determination, of love, and he feels it flow into the wood, every branch and leaf and blossom he’s ever made before revitalising the memory in the oak. All the wildflowers in Egeria’s garden, all the plants in the greenhouses, all the trees and foliage and flowers on the mountain seem to sing to him as he pours everything into the oak. In a split second, there’s a sudden redirection back outwards, and a rumbling hum as powerful new oak branches erupt from the table, wrapping first around Kastor’s outstretched arms, then his wrists and shoulders, cocooning the blade in bark and twining around Kastor’s torso, down his legs to the marble floor and piercing through that still, deep into the ground down to the bedrock. It breaks through the ropes holding Laurent down and molds around him, too, an almost cushioned divot in the wood, rounded leaves unfurling and brushing against his skin, saved from harm. 

The table, now sprouted with branches in a whirl of thick bark and clouds of leaves, finally grinds to a standstill, and Laurent heaves deep breaths as he sits up; he can’t see the _kopis_ anymore but it must still be trapped in there, the globule of wood held above him. His gaze glosses over Kastor’s frantic eyes from where they peek out above a constricting branch and meets Damen’s, now only a couple steps away.

“ _Grow_ ,” Laurent gasps, into the newly humid air.

Laurent slips out from on top of the table, panting, and can only take a few quavering steps before Damen drops his sword to a clatter on the marble and Laurent falls into him, still shaking from the adrenaline. The embrace is as ragged as Laurent feels but it’s good, and something whole, and Laurent can’t quite help the way his fingers cling to the skin of Damen’s back. Damen likewise grips around Laurent’s ribcage and shudders a breath through Laurent’s hair, whispering, “I thought I was too late,” and “I would never forgive myself,” and “ _Laurent_ ,” and the last one feels so much like love that it steals Laurent’s breath even more.

Laurent thinks that he will always find a way to grow, and that for now the way is towards Damen. He thinks, “I want to grow alongside you,” and then finds that he’s said the words aloud, too. He feels Damen smile into his hair, and closes his eyes. There will be time to deal with everything.

The sun emerges at last over the hills and between the columns, illuminating each facet of bark, waxy leaf, and blossom with its light as they embrace, fully blooming. 

\---

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for any comments and kudos, and also go read the other great RBB fics! I'm on tumblr at brigitttt and brigittttoo (side blog for writing), and also on twitter @ brigitttt_


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